The National Park Service is restoring and reinstalling the statue of a Confederate general that was torn down in the District during the George Floyd protests of 2020.
Park service officials said Monday that the reinstallation of the statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike at the intersection of D and Third streets NW is in accordance with two executive orders. President Trump has ordered the restoration of statues, monuments and memorials that were damaged, defaced, removed or changed in recent years.
Pike recruited and trained American Indians to fight for the Confederacy in the Civil War and was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the Rebel army. He resigned from the army in 1862, accusing the Confederacy of violating its treaties with the Indians.
After the war, he renounced his Confederate interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and received a pardon from President Andrew Johnson in 1865. Pike died in the District in 1891 at the age of 81.
Congress authorized in 1898 a statue of Pike that was erected in 1901 and focused on his years-long dedication to Freemasonry, the National Park Service said.
Protesters in the District demonstrating against Floyd’s police-involved murder in Minneapolis toppled the Pike statue on June 19, 2020, which prompted Mr. Trump to post on X: “The D.C. Police are not doing their job as they watch a statue be ripped down & burn. These people should be immediately arrested. A disgrace to our Country!”
The park service, which placed the Pike statue into secure storage, is now working to prepare it for public display. It’s expected to be back on its D.C. base in October, the park service said.
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat and the District’s nonvoting representative in the House, said in a release that she plans to reintroduce a bill to permanently remove the Pike statue and donate it to a museum.
“Pike served dishonorably. He took up arms against the United States, misappropriated funds, and was ultimately captured and imprisoned by his own troops. He resigned in disgrace after committing a war crime and dishonoring even his own Confederate military service. … A statue honoring a racist and a traitor has no place on the streets of D.C.,” Ms. Norton said.
